Booklog 73/2023: Marshall Ryan Maresca: The Quarrygate Gambit – Streets of Maradaine #4

[jacey]

Asti and Verci Rynax and friends have been taken into custody under false names  with no legal charge. While they work out how to escape, their friends/wife/potential lover are given a job by Josie Holt, which they can’t possibly achieve – but it’s their only chance to get Josie’s help to rescue the ‘boys.’ While this is happening Asti and Verci and their friends have been split up in Quarrygate prison, still not knowing why they are there. It turns out that there is a deeper plot and Asti is inveigled into leading a team of dubious criminals to track down enemies of the state. Unfortunately the real villain of the piece is even nastier than the group they were sent after. This is twisty and gripping. Unfortunately the Maradaine novels (which I love) are not very easy to get hold of in the UK for reading on Kindle, so I’ve only read #1 (The Holver Alley Crew) and this is #4, so I’m missing the backstories of some of the characters. It didn’t spoil it for me because Maresca covers the essentials, but I do like to read a series in order. (Some of them now appear to be on audiobook only.) Asti and Verci are great characters, brought up by an unashamedly criminally clever father they have been well trained in the arts of subterfuge ad they can hold their own in any criminal company. Verci is particularly talented at gadget-making (which comes in very handy in this book). Asti, though lethal, has been broken by torture in his former career as a spy. Sometimes he can barely hold it together, knowing that if he lets that other Asti loose there will be terrible consequences. Both men are vulnerable in different ways, which makes for very interesting reading. Highly recommended, but start from the beginning of the sequence if you can.